Coupon use clipped, but many still seek deal

Originally published March 18, 2013 at 6:43 pm

Updated March 18, 2013 at 9:01 pm

U.S. consumers last year redeemed 2.9 billion coupons on consumer packaged goods, which includes everything from cereal to toilet-bowl cleaner. The total number of coupons made available was 305 billion.

Veronica Shores, center, and members of the Savvy Savers Coupon Clippers gather twice a month to swap their unwanted coupons in Garner, N.C.

“The industry is not used to having double-digit (swings) either way,” Morgan said. “That’s a big deal. Historically, it has been slow single-digit (increases or decreases) either way.”

With an uneven economic recovery as the backdrop, coupon-clipping shoppers have taken notice.

Kim Maney, 38, of Apex, N.C., shops at various supermarkets and drugstores, follows coupon blogs and takes advantage of double- and triple-coupon offers. A lawyer, wife and mother of a 2-year-old, Maney said she has noticed a drop in the quality of paper coupons.

“A quarter off toilet paper? Really? What am I going to do with that?” Maney said.

Last year, U.S. consumers redeemed 2.9 billion coupons on consumer packaged goods, which includes everything from cereal to toilet-bowl cleaner.

That’s according to the most recent tally by NCH Marketing, a Deerfield, Ill.-based company and one of the country’s major coupon clearinghouses.

The 17.1 percent drop in 2012 is even more dramatic considering the total number of coupons made available — paper and digital — remained steady at 305 billion.

Charlie Brown, vice president of marketing at NCH, attributes the decline to a calculated move by manufacturers to correct an “unusually high” redemption rate in 2011.

Coupon redemption reached 3.5 billion coupons in 2011, which was a 6 percent increase over the previous year and a 26 percent increase since before the recession.

During the worst of the economic downturn, Morgan said, “marketers ramped up (coupon offers) to protect their market share.”

In 2012, manufacturers put the brakes on coupons. The coupon values became skimpier, the expiration dates shorter, and often the coupons required that shoppers buy two or even three of an item before getting 55 cents off.

Manufacturers also issued more coupons for new products, which Brown said, “doesn’t have the same level of appeal.”

“For the manufacturer, the redemption of the coupon is an expense,” he said, so they purposely made the coupon offers less attractive. “They don’t want 100 percent of the coupons redeemed.”

Based on his company’s most recent consumer survey, he said consumers will continue to clip and save. Nearly 80 percent said they use coupons “always,” “very often” or “sometimes.” That number has remained steady over the past several years.

Jackie Warrick, the president of CouponCabin.com, an online site that compiles coupons and coupon codes on everything from groceries to the latest electronic gadgets, said she believes coupon savings are here to stay, although perhaps in different forms.

“I think companies are working to try to find the right mix,” she said. “They definitely need to work on making coupons as hassle-free as possible.”

As of 2012, about 90 percent of all coupons were still distributed in coupon books, the vast majority delivered via the Sunday newspaper.

Thus far, the so-called “click-to-card” digital coupons that shoppers load to their store loyalty cards have amounted to only about 1 percent of coupons distributed, and redemption is similarly small.

Traditional coupon clippers have been slow to adopt them, citing their limitations.